For a guy who oversees a graveyard, Kirk Leopard has some funny stories, and heartwarming ones.

Leopard, director of Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery since late 2007, is leaving San Diego for a higher position in the National Cemetery Administration.

The affable retired Navy corpsman is credited with shouldering the day-in, day-out burdens of building the new Miramar National Cemetery.

Despite long delays caused by environmental and bureaucratic red tape, the cemetery accepted its first cremated remains in November. After rain delays, the first casket burial is scheduled for April 14.

Among veterans, Leopard is also praised for securing thousands of new burial niches for urns at Fort Rosecrans, which has been mostly closed to caskets since 1966.

“He’s led the effort to construct the columbarium walls at Fort Rosecrans for veterans’ ashes, while the approval process was ongoing to start building the new cemetery at Miramar,” said veterans advocate Steve Arends.

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Bob Cardenas, who led the charge for Miramar, said he knew San Diego wouldn’t be Leopard’s last career stop.

“He was so good in all aspects in dealing with the families, dealing with contractors working on the cemetery, dealing with brass back in Washington,” Cardenas said.

But there are aspects of the position that not many people know.

It’s not always a desk job. Though Leopard wears a suit every day now, early in his career as a cemetery director, he had to hop onto a backhoe to dig a grave if someone called in sick.

At Fort Rosecrans, on the tip of the windswept Point Loma peninsula, the director lives among the gravestones in a small “lodge.”

Sure, the views are spectacular. But Leopard, 46, says people often – often — mistake his front door for a public building.

“It’s definitely a double-edged sword,” he said.

“I’ve been sitting there watching cartoons with the kids on a Saturday morning, and people will knock on the door and ask for assistance in finding a grave.”

It is so common, he added, that one of his twin boys, now 13, developed a knack for it.

“He got so he could run up here to the grave locator and help them print out a map and find a grave site,” Leopard said.

But he’s not going to advise his replacement, not yet named, to live elsewhere.

“Anybody who takes the directorship of Fort Rosecrans is here because they love serving veterans,” he said.